


Eight Steps to You

by lar_laughs



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, a four man rowing team, how to shoot a bow, olympic au, what happens at the olympics stays at the olympics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-04
Updated: 2012-09-03
Packaged: 2017-11-11 09:44:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lar_laughs/pseuds/lar_laughs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a fun and silly story about a WHAT IF posed in a conversation at <a href="http://be-compromised.livejournal.com/">be_compromised</a>... WHAT IF Clint and Natasha were at the Olympic Summer Games in London?  This is what happens when my brain starts click-clacking away!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Assume the Correct Stance

**Author's Note:**

> Incidentally, I wasn't able to watch the opening ceremonies and only know about the outfits because of the outcry on the internet. Any other fact about the ceremony itself or any other event is untrue. I made up everything. No person mentioned in this fic is real. If I got any facts correct, I apologize!
> 
> This first chapter is taken from the prompt: _But all I’ve ever learned from love/Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you_ (lyrics from Hallelujah) which makes this chapter for **ashen_key**.

“Now or never, Hawk. Now or never.”

“Yeah. Just shoot straight and you’ll be fine.” Marks patted Clint on his arm. His dominant arm. The one that was insured for nearly a million dollars at the moment. A jostle from any one of the other Olympic athletes surrounding them and any hope the Americans had of taking home gold in these games was over.

Clint rounded on him, baring his teeth, but Butler was there first, separating the two men with a grimace for Clint and a firm, “Let’s go see what there is to see over here,” for Marks. Considering their event had started this afternoon, it was stupid for the men’s archery team to be walking in the opening ceremonies but Clint had pulled some strings. Not just with the team coach but with the Olympic Committee.

His goal was not the area reserved for the Americans where the rest of his countrymen were headed. No, he was headed for the Russian side of the stadium where his blue blazer would be an eyesore among the swirls of red and white. All he could hope was that a cameraman didn’t see him and point out the discrepancy on live TV. As much money as he _wasn’t_ making in these games, no matter the endorsements he had received, he couldn’t afford to be fined. Not for this bit of stupidity.

It was all for a girl, after all. A girl with fiery red hair that he’d seen two years ago at the Women’s Rowing Finals in France. He shouldn’t have been there at all, only showing up to irritate his “sort of” girlfriend, Bobbi Morse. It was a silly feud they had with each other, showing up at pivotal matches to see if they could affect the other person’s outcome. Love, to them, had become a competition to see who could, for want of a simple metaphor, outdraw the other.

His plan had been to show up, stick his face in hers, watch a heat or two, and board a plane for Switzerland for a match of his own. The problem was that he saw the red-head before he ever saw Bobbi. He couldn’t take his eyes off the woman the entire time and ended up missing his plane... and the three other possible planes he could have taken that same day. 

He’d arrived too late to do any sort of warm ups but had still shot better than most of his team. Not as good as Greg Killian but no one shot as good as the captain of their team. Not until the accident that ruined the nerve endings in his right arm. Now, Clint was captain and Greg was somewhere in Nova Scotia, learning to fish.

It was enough to scare Clint into making some changes in his life. Like telling his “sort of” girlfriend that he was looking for more than she was willing to give him. It was one thing to jump into bed with each other when they were in the same state but there wasn’t any passion in it. Neither of them felt much but friendship for the other.

He hadn’t told her about the Russian, though. No one had known for the longest time, his teenage-like crush growing in leaps and bounds from glimpses on TV and the internet. Clint bought a state-of-the-art laptop just to be able to stream her races. While he wasn’t able to see any more of them in person, he became an avid fan just from the information he found online.

It would be lying to say he didn’t feel like a cad for stalking her. When he told his team about his idea to meet her at the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, he was forced to share some of the information he’d learned but only some. Even Kris Butler, his best friend, only knew bits and pieces.

So here he was, blue man in an ocean of red, with his intended target in sight... and not a word of the Russian he’d been attempting to learn came to mind. Well, damn it all to hell.

***

The chatter was becoming almost too much for Natasha to bear. It was impossible to be comfortable in a crowd this size when she was used to the serene calm of the water. Even though she participated in a sport that had spectators, the number of which had been rising since her team had started to do so well, she never could get used to being surrounded like this.

It had been mandated that all athletes attend unless they had matches on the day of or the day after the ceremonies. Her coach had all but pushed her out the door of the car that had delivered them to the venue.

“You need to practice being in front of people, Natalia. Go. Participate. You’ll thank me later.”

There was no way she was going to thank Gregor. Not for this. Her brain felt wrung out and her ears were tired of hearing so much sound. She wanted nothing more than to be far, far away from this spectacle.

“Hey.”

A hand touched her shoulder and she tensed. It was not one of her team, who were all beside her. If it was the gymnast who thought she’d been giving him “the look” on the plane ride, he was going to find it hard to complete his routines with only one working hand.

Gregor had pleaded with her to be gentle with the other athletes during the games. It would look bad for the country if she was seen to be harming anyone. With all the cameras around, it was sure to be caught on tape and then her career, and the career of her teammates, would be over. Mother Russia would look down on that for sure.

So she turned, a half-smile formed on her lips so that her brush off would be seen as polite. If it was the gymnast, though, she was going to tell him off here and now. All the attention was getting annoying.

But it wasn’t the gymnast. It wasn’t even anyone from the Russian team. She looked up from a blue blazer into the bluest pair of eyes she’d ever seen. “Hello.” Her accent, usually non-existent when she spoke English, was heavy and sluggish, as if her words needed to pass through mud before coming out of her mouth.

He seemed delighted by her response, his eyes lighting up and his smile turning up higher at one corner. “You speak English.”

“Most of us do. It’s required when one is competing internationally. Makes it easier to find the right plane.”

Her teammates caught her use of sarcasm and began to giggle, but their eyes stayed focused on the events in front of them. She saw plenty of side glances from some of the other teams, enough that she felt her irritation at being in a crowd climb even further. This felt like a conversation that would have been nice to have in private.

But instead, she opened her mouth and more sarcasm fell out of it. “Perhaps you know Russian for when you come to our country to compete. It seems only fair.”

His eyes grew wide and skittish, as if she had brought up the one thing he feared the most in the world. When he opened his mouth and started uttering the most absurd sounds, she figured she had found his weak spot.

“What was that?” someone asked beside her. Natasha spun around and glared at them until they moved further away.

“My accent needs work,” the American admitted with a most becoming blush.

“No. That wasn’t accent. That was garbage.” The blush deepened and she felt the stirrings of pity for him. “Say this,” she commanded, followed by the words she assumed he’d meant to say. As he repeated them back to her, his verbalization got better and his accent, while still off, improved by leaps and bounds.

She stared at him for a moment. “You knew that already. Why did you sound so horrible the first time?”

“Nerves.”

“Let us hope you don’t get nerves that badly when you compete, Mr-” She trailed off, waiting for him to fill in the information she could have found by looking down at his badge. It was polite for a gentleman to introduce himself. In this day and age, gentlemen were a dime a dozen but she was always hoping to find one.

This man seemed to have the knack of it, his hand extended before the sounds of her words evaporated in the noise of the stadium. “Clint. Clint Barton. Archery.”

She fit her hand very gently in his. Neither of them could afford to be bruising anything right before everything started. “Natasha Romanova. Rowing.”

“Hallelujah,” he breathed, so silent she almost missed it. He cleared his throat, covering over what he might have been saying. “It’s very nice to meet you. Have you been-”

He was interrupted by a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry about this, Mr. Barton. The producers have spotted you. There’s nothing I can do about it. You’ll need to leave.”

“But-”

“You’ll need to leave,” the Olympic guard, dressed up to look like a tourism guide, said with more force.

“Maybe we will see each other again, Clint Barton.” The words came out of her mouth as he turned to leave, confusing them both.

“Yeah,” he answered with a smile that warmed her. “Maybe we will.”

When she turned back around, it was hard to think of anything but the man making his way back across the stadium. The lights dimmed, the roar of the crowd softened, the press of her teammates grew less tiresome as the memory of his smile filled her. She didn’t know how but Natasha knew she would have to find a way to come across this man again.


	2. Grip it Tight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every muscle in his body was tight. Try as he might, Clint couldn’t loosen up at all. He’d gone for a run this morning, just as he always did, but the flow hadn’t come to him in the mindless plodding. Not like it normally did when he emptied his mind so that the only thing was the sound of his breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: _I'd give up forever to touch you/Because I know you feel it somehow/You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be/And I don't want to go home right now_  
>  (Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls - although I have a special love for the Leona Lewis cover)

Every muscle in his body was tight. Try as he might, Clint couldn’t loosen up at all. He’d gone for a run this morning, just as he always did, but the flow hadn’t come to him in the mindless plodding. Not like it normally did when he emptied his mind so that the only thing was the sound of his breathing.

With each beat of his heart, he’d only remembered one more little detail of last night. The way her hair looked, long and red. Would they call that titan? He wasn’t even sure if it should be classified as read. The red of the outfit she’d worn had clashed with it terribly but he took that as a failure on the part of the designer, not on her hair.

He’d only ever seen it up in the french braid she wore while competing. Even online, most of the pictures showed her with it bound up. What they were missing by not having any pictures of it down in a riot of soft curls.

There are a million things he can’t stop thinking about. Her smile, for one. Her eyes, for another. The expression in them was nearly all malice but he’d seen, once or twice, something that might have been interest. He was willing to make a fool of himself all over again if it gave him another chance to see those sparks.

“Your grip is too tight,” Marks hissed from his position over to Clint’s left. 

If the judges wouldn’t penalize him and the Olympic Committee ban him from every participating again, Clint would have turned and fired his arrow right into the man’s stomach. Oh, how he loathed the man who had taken Greg’s place. He hated him so much that he refused to call him by his first name. Who named their children Adrian, anyway? Adrian Marks. It sounded like the name of a kid who got beat up a lot in grade school.

“Leave off,” Kris whispered, an admonition to Marks to stop talking and a reminder to Clint that he needed to concentrate on the here and now.

Natasha was not here. Now, she was somewhere else.

Deep breathe in. Deep breathe out. He raised the bow and drew the string back. Found the anchor against his face.

Did she have a number he could try calling?

“God damn it,” he muttered, his concentration completely shattered by, of all things, hope. It’s a nasty four letter word that he should know better than to cling to. She’s here where he can reach her but she’s still out of reach. So far away.

His grip is too tight. On his bow. On the memory of her. One wrong move and it’s over. The match. The idea of a relationship. All over. All wrong. Messed up. He’s not sure if he knows how to fix this. It definitely won’t be in the few seconds he has to get this shot off. Probably won’t even be in the days he has of the event. Two days and he’s already so fucked up in the head, he’s not sure he can make anything happen right.

A spot of red hovers in his peripheral vision. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let go of the string.

***

She told herself she wasn’t going to come to the venue. She should be in seclusion, her own races starting tomorrow, but she traded in some favors and found herself on the fifth row of a sold-out event.

As she walked to her seat with her teammates, Natasha looked for Clint, surprised to see him with his bow pulled, aiming for a target. He’s all angles and points, the muscles in his arm defined so well she could see them even from this distance.

A murmur of approval from the crowd swelled only seconds after he let go of the string he’d been holding onto for what seems like forever. “What?” she asked Alisa, unsure what she’d missed that everyone else liked.

“He hit the target.” She elbowed her teammate in the side. “Pay attention.”

But she was paying attention. Too much attention. Even though there was a large screen showing the important activity, she couldn’t take her eyes away from the man getting back into line beside his teammates. For a moment, he started to smile but then he had his hands on his knees as if he was having trouble breathing. One of his teammates bent down and whispered something in his ear.

In exquisite slow motion, he turned his head toward her. The smile, even over the distance, was for her. Her answering smile is undimmed.

***

“Yeah, that’s her, Romeo.” 

Clint doesn’t like the nickname but he likes the information. With a simple turn of his head, he could pick her out of the crowd. He doesn’t know what god he’d gotten approval from but the very fact that she was here meant a lot. More than anything, it meant that this wasn’t as one-sided as he’d feared. He’d made an impression.

 _Good or bad?_ he wondered. Maybe she was here to laugh at him.

Oh, god. That smile. He’d never seen her smile like that, not even after winning the chance to come to the Olympics. The photographers that followed her around were missing all the best stuff if they’d never gotten a picture of a smile like that.

“Think you can shoot again or should we look into a wet shower for you?”

He wasn’t sure how it was already his turn again but he walked forward, confident in himself for the first time all day. This time, everything fell together effortlessly, as if he wasn’t even trying. HIs hands knew how to grip. His shoulders knew how to set. His feet properly placed themselves. His breathing regulated until he barely had to do anything but simply _be_ in her presence.

Clint let the arrow fly, straight and true and... what?

He stared at the target. The middle, where ninety percent of his arrows came to rest, even on his worst day of practice, was empty of his bow. With wide eyes, he looked to the left and the right, just to make sure he was looking at the right target.

There his arrow sat, so far to the right that it nearly didn’t qualify.

***

Natasha searched for the reason of the intense silence. The whole of the crowd was holding their collective breath as if they really were one beast.

“Oh, no.” Alisa gripped her hand, the one she’d put out for support. “He missed.”

“I did this,” she whispered, suddenly feeling like a pariah. At any minute, she was sure someone would notice her presence and demand that she leave. Or, worse, start to tear her to shreds so that she was nothing but a tatter of rags with RUSSIA still stitched in perfect letters among her bones. “We shouldn’t have come.”

Lilya reached over Alisa to tap Natasha on the knee. “No. This wasn’t your fault. He lost his concentration.”

“Because of me.”

“Because he doesn’t know what it means to concentrate in the face of adversity.”

It was better when she was a break of concentration. Now she’s a dragon to be fought at with a sword. Her eyes narrowed. “That doesn’t help, Lilya. Not that you probably meant it to.”

Her teammate gives her a brittle smile and settles back into a seat she never wanted to occupy. None of the girls wanted to be here but had come as a means of solidarity. Natasha would have rather not shared this with them, especially since it ended in such horrendous trauma. Even without the large screen, she can see the pain on Clint’s face. This shouldn’t have happened. Even worse, she shouldn’t have been here to see it in person.

“Come,” she announced, standing up despite the roar of protest from the people sitting on the row above theirs. “We’re going back to training.”

“We never should have left.”

She didn’t try to contradict the words even though she wanted to. This meeting wasn’t meant to be. Not here. Not now. But she’d give up forever to find the perfect time and place because there’s more to Clint Barton that a target hit or a target missed.

***

When he could finally pull himself together enough to look over at the stands, the spot was empty. Either he’d imagined her or she’d left. What use is an archer who can’t shoot straight?

He stared down at his hands. There was nowhere else for him to look at the moment.


	3. Nocking the Arrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bobbi interrupts the breakdown of not one, but two, of our protagonists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: _“It is difficult for some people to accept that love is a choice. This seems to run counter to the generally accepted theory of romantic love which expounds that love is inborn and as such requires no more than to accept it.”  
>  \- Leo F. Buscaglia_
> 
> Once again, I have no idea how the ins and outs of the Olympics actually works. I'm assuming you don't either.

Clint sat hunched over a steaming cup of whatever they called coffee in this god-forsaken place. He supposed it was a nice enough country but the rain was getting to him. 

_Rain, rain, go away, come again another day._ The rhyme from his childhood was reverberating through his head, exacerbating an already raging headache. All he needed was his abandonment issues to start mingling with the events from yesterday. Sure, why not drive him all the way down. 

“Hey.”

He groaned, pulling the cup of coffee closer just in case she might think he intended to share his perfectly sugared drink. Fortunately, Bobbi knew better than to try for the coffee this early in the morning.

When it appeared that he wasn’t going to share in her greeting, she started in on what she’d interrupted his morning routine for. “So, you and the Russian, huh?”

“What?” Snapping his head up was a bad idea. Very bad, indeed. His teeth ground together as he tried to get a grasp on his equilibrium once again. It flitted about the room before settling down so that there was only one cup of coffee and one Bobbi. “Who told?”

“Ah, you really are a blind boy. You told, moron. How long do you think you stared at her? Everyone was watching you watch her. You should hear the rumors that have popped up around Olympic Village.”

Clint closed his eyes, the nausea escalating far beyond anything he could control by will alone. If this conversation got much worse, he was going to have to find a toilet. “How many did you start?”

“Me? Only a few. It’s to get even, of course. You jilted me and now everyone is certain it was because you had the Russian in your pocket all this time. You know her nickname is Black Widow, right? You can guess how she got it.”

“Can I? I don’t think I can.” He took a deep breath and tried to come up with something because even with his eyes closed, he could tell she was starting to squint at her the way she did when she was getting pissed off. A pissed off Bobbi meant his life would be lived in constant fear so he tried to play along. “Um, she eats her dates after she has sex with them?”

“Only if her nickname was Praying Mantis. Black widows aren’t cannibals. Well, not all of them. Anyway, she got her nickname because she has a tendency to paralyze her opponent. It dates back to the days when she rowed doubles instead of on a four-man team. She and her partner were scary to go up against. It’s bad enough now, when she’s with this new crew.”

“And her other partner?” Clint was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to have picked up on that one detail from the huff of exasperation she gave him. If his head didn’t hurt so much, he might be enjoying himself.

“Died. No one knows how. Her coach kept the autopsy secret. There was talk about drugs but no one could prove anything. Just collapsed during practice one day. The Russian’s been a fourth every sense.”

Taking a deep gulp to fortify himself, he looked up at his ex-girlfriend. “Why are you telling me this, Bobbi?”

“Because I’m worried about you, Clint. I’m worried about where this infatuation is going to take you. What’re you doing to do when this all over? Defect? It’s not like she’s got plans on leaving Russian anytime soon.” To emphasize her point, she slid a rowing magazine across the table. It was one he’d seen before but she took the few seconds to flip it open, her patriotic-colored nails tapping a paragraph she’d circled.

He didn’t need to read it to know what it said but he gave it a cursory glance just so she would think this was new information to him. “She wants to row for many years to come. So? Don’t you?”

“And what about you? Are you going to get comfortable flying back and forth to Russia? Maybe you’ll learn the languague? It would come in handy if you’re going to suddenly be the one running to her beck and call.”

He slammed his fists on the table, rattling his cup and sending Bobbi scuttling back as far as her chair would let her. As he stood up, he figured he had two minutes, tops, before he lost his breakfast. He was going to have to talk fast.

“What I choose to do with my time and airline miles is between me and American Airlines. It always has been. This is not about you, Bobbi, as much as you’d like it to be. I’m not going to talk about Natasha to you or anyone else. Now, leave me alone so I can suffer in peace.”

It was a near thing but he made it to the empty stall just in time. As he rested his forehead against the cool porcelain, he had to wonder if he’d done something to anger one of the Olympic gods. It was only three days in and he was already starting to wonder if he should have stayed home.

***

Natasha liked the feel of the water lapping around her ankles. It was still early but she’d asked to be driven down to the practice venue for the chance to get a look around. At least, that’s what she said she was going to do. Instead, she’d really just wanted to sit here and think while the water calmed her fears and soothed her worries.

She always had worries but suddenly her fears were starting to take over. This was not the time nor the place but she’d watched Clint execute a flawless shot that had been a failure. She’d seen the bits and pieces of different interviews he’d done last night, all of them showing a man with a smile and a cavalliere attitude about the whole affair.

_It just wasn’t my day. Couldn’t find the right mix of skill and desire. There’s always tomorrow. We’re still in this and we’re going to battle to the very end._

While Clint could afford those statements, she could not. If Natasha had a similar experience, she would not have the same smile to fall back on. No one would ask the easy questions and nurture her through. One chance. One. They’d made that very clear on the morning right before they flew out.

_If you show weakness, we will find someone to take your place within minutes of your landing back on Russian soil. Do we have an understanding?_

It had been directed at her. Her teammates weren’t having the same trouble she was having. Oh, her body was still doing what she required of it. With the regime she was on, she could go for years as a top-ranking rower. Her coach had such faith in her, always pushing her to be her best and nothing more.

Too bad her head didn’t feel twisted on correctly anymore. Nothing had felt right since Masha ended up as nothing but a heap of skin and bones at her feet, the girl’s sightless eyes giving neither advice or salvation as they seared their way into Natasha’s soul.

She was beginning to hyperventilate, the water doing nothing to calm her, when a warm body dropped down beside her. 

“Hey.”

From the corner of her eye, Natasha took a few seconds to place the blonde-haired girl before answering. “Come to mess with my head, Bobbi.” She spat out the name as if it tasted of the most horrible thing she could imagine.

Bobbi’s smile was brittle. “Actually, I came to give you something, Natalia.”

She really hated it when anyone called her by her formal name but tried not to let the irritation show. The last thing she needed Bobbi Morse, American Apple Pie Cheerleader, know was yet another of her flaws. It felt like so many people already knew so many of them already.

“I don’t think I-”

“You’ll want this one. Trust me. I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for Clint.”

The name brought Natasha’s attention around to the slip of paper the other girl was holding out. There was only a series of ten numbers on it. She wasn’t sure what Clint wanted her to do with such a cryptic message but she was willing to figure it out.

“This is his phone number. I don’t know what it is about you but he’s fallen hard. I’ve never seen him like this before.” When Natasha tried to pull the paper out of Bobbi’s grasp, she found that she couldn’t get it to budge. She looked up into the stormy eyes of this sudden competitor, unsure why she wouldn’t let go. “If you hurt him, I’ll hurt you. It’s a promise.”

“I would never hurt him.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t mean to but I’ve heard things.”

Natasha lifted her chin. “I don’t know what you’ve heard but I can assure you that I would never hurt Clint. He is an honorable man.”

“And are you an honorable woman?”

A swift chop to the girl’s wrist and the paper fluttered free as the nerves protested. Natasha scooped it up before it could hit the water’s surface, tucking it into her bra for safe keeping. Anywhere else and she might lose it without realizing it. Natasha jumped to her feet, her irritation swelling with her added stature.

“Never. But who are you to call my honor into play here. I don’t know who Clint is to you but I will not be held a prisoner to suit your whims. Thank you for the phone number. I will use it wisely. Now I will thank you to stay out of it.”

“Like a charm” Bobbi muttered as Natasha turned to walk away. For a moment, she thought about wadding the paper up and throwing it at the girl for presuming to think that she was playing Natasha but that would be too much like giving up entirely. It would be better to play this one out and see where it all led. Besides, Natasha wanted to see if she would really be calling Clint Barton's phone or if she found that her call was directed elsewhere.


	4. Raise and Draw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint's team wins gold while Natasha and Alisa contemplate Malibu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> used the prompt: _“The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them.” - Stephen King_ (violetrosesky)

The last round of archery was late in the afternoon. Everything they’d worked for was coming down to this. Their last showing had set them further back in the standings than was comfortable but Clint was confident his team could pull it off. Well, as least as confident as a person with a stomach virus could be. The nurse had pumped him full of fluids and sent him out with a reminder to keep drinking as much as he could stomach.

 _Stomach. Ha, ha. You’re a comedian_ , he wanted to scream back at her as he jogged away from the med tent, but she’d been the one to make it possible for him to stand upright once again. All he had to do was get through the next few hours and he could go find a bed and not come out from the covers for the next day or so.

As he waited, with his teammates, to be announced, his phone vibrated. Taking it out, he saw that it was a text from an unknown number. Very unknown... and very foreign, from the look of those digits. Flicking it on, he tried not to smile as he read, _Is this Clint Barton’s phone?_

 _Yes, it is. Who’s this?_ he responded back.

He had barely enough time to put it back in his pocket before it buzzed again. _Natasha. Good luck tonight. I promise not to come and ruin your shooting._

_It wasn’t you. It was me. Don’t worry about it._

_Thank you but I still won’t be there._

He tapped the phone case against his front teeth, deep in thought as to how he should respond. Deciding to go for broke, he typed out, _I wish you were but only to prove that you aren’t a bad penny. I let myself get distracted by your hair. Have I ever told you how much I love it?_

They were announced and he had little time to consider the ramification of his words as he slid his phone into his bag where it should have been before. Now they were walking out into the field and he struggled to get his game face in place. Now was not the time for dreaming. Now it was all about his bow and his arrows and the target waiting for him at the other end of the field.

“I heard about it but I never thought they’d be able to pull it off.”

Clint turned toward Kris. “What?”

He pointed to the stands. “The Italians went out and found every single person with red hair in the city limits and paid for them to come to the match today.”

Sure enough, the stands were full of spectators with red hair. There were even some people in wigs and a few that had brought red hats. He never would have given the Italian team credit for this kind of ingenuity. It was an awesome sight, if only because he knew they’d tried to sidetrack him and failed. They would have been better off trying to give him a second dose of the stomach virus that was still pestering him.

The rest of the team was serious when he glanced back at them. Sliding his trademarked sunglasses down into place, Clint smiled triumphantly. “Let’s go get ‘em, boys. It looks like they’re not expecting a fight. Let’s show ‘em that the Americans came to play.”

***

“Do you think the gold medals are heavier than the silver medals?”

Clint opened one eye to look at Marks. It was like the guy was seven and had gotten the one toy on his Christmas list that he really wanted. Not that he was going to mention it but his own medal felt pretty good hanging around his neck.

“That was some good shooting,” he said instead of responding to the question. If Marks wanted to be civil, who was he to tell him to shut up?

“Not as good as you.” 

The complement put a stop to the other conversations in the van as the other members of the team and their coach turned to look at Marks with something life fear. _Who are you and what have you done with Adrian Marks, idiot extraordinaire?_

“I’m serious here. You have the stomach flu and you went out and shot your best match ever. After yesterday, I thought we were goners.”

“Yesterday was a fluke,” Kris started to point out but Clint put his hand up to stop the defense. He’d shot like crap yesterday and he wasn’t going to let Kris get them into another argument about it.

“At the level we’re at, shooting a bow isn’t physical anymore. It’s mental. My body is trained to hold the bow correctly, to nock the arrow and let it fly. I don’t have to think about it anymore. What I do have to think about is my position in the universe. My position to the target. I have to remember to breathe. Yesterday I forgot how to breathe for a few seconds and look what happened? Today, I didn’t forget.”

Kris leaned over in his seat, hitting Clint’s shoulder with a playful swat. “I wish you’d forgotten how to throw up, Hawk.” 

It got a good laugh, if only because of the memory of Clint trying to find someplace that was out of the media’s line of sight to get sick was still heavy in their mind. Those had been an iffy few minutes as Clint tried to compose himself again. He could only hope that his health had stayed a secret. The very last thing he wanted to hear Bob Costas bringing it up on tonight’s broadcast, complete with speculations on what he ate the night before and how he was treating his symptoms.

“Same here.” The world was getting a little fuzzy now that he’d finally let the medics put him on something more than Gatorade. It was only some anti-nausea meds and a sleeping pill that was barely starting to work, but it was more than he would have normally allowed on the other side of the medal stand.

Instead of letting himself slide into sleep just yet, he opened his eyes. “Can anyone get to the side pocket of my bag? I need my phone.”

It was stupid to hope for a message but now that she had his number, there was nothing that said he couldn’t dream a little. Sadly, there was nothing waiting for him. Instead, he flicked the screen on with his thumb and scrolled through their conversation again. When he found the perfect path to take with his next message, he couldn’t help but grin.

_Well, lucky penny, we got gold. Think you can outdo that?_

***

Her legs were shaking by the time she got off the water but it was a good tremor. It meant she’d found the edge of endurance and gone well over it with positive results. This would be their last hard practice on water. Until their event started, they’d be working on land training. The only problem was that it would be closer to the venue and away from Olympic Village.

 _Maybe this is for the best_ , she decided as she towelled the sweat out of her eyes. _Maybe now I can get him out of my head._

With the next breath, she was reaching for her phone. Maybe she was just kidding herself, thinking it would be that easy to walk away from him now. Something about Clint Barton had gotten under her skin. After this morning’s conversation with Bobbi, it was only wedged in there tighter, as if her words and actions had been a defense of feelings she didn’t even realize she felt.

“Anything good?” Alisa leaned over to get a better look at the screen. “Any further declarations of love? Maybe he wants to take you away with him to Malibu, to live on his yacht.”

“Hush. And not everyone in America lives in Malibu. What is your obsession with the place?”

Her teammate shrugged. “It sounds like a nice place, this Malibu. Warm. They have an ocean there.”

“We have an ocean.”

“Not the same thing.” She made a face like she was eating lemons. “Our ocean is cold and has trash in it. Malibu, I’m sure, has a beautiful beach. And warm water this is blue, not gray with sludge. Ask him if he has a yacht.”

Natasha nudged her friend out of the way with her shoulder as she tried to think of a good response back. Her brain was still in competition mode, keenly aware of her breathing and where all her limbs were at, but it wasn’t focused on words. Instead, she goes for easy and simple.

_Congratulations. Be listening for our anthem when we’re up on that podium._

She showed the phone to Alisa who just rolled her eyes. “What?”

“No flirting? Have I taught you nothing in all our years together? He’s going to think you aren’t interested.”

That gave Natasha something to think about through cool down and the shower afterwards. While she was fairly certain that one simple text couldn’t undo the fact that she’d gone to see him shoot (unfortunate consequences as a horrible side effect, of course), she tried to come up with something else. Nothing came to her but she kept her phone with her throughout the rest of the evening in case inspiration struck.

She was nearly asleep when it started to vibrate. Careful of waking up Alisa, she turned over on her side and flipped it open. It said it was coming from Clint’s phone but the message wasn’t from him.

_Is Clint with you? I have his phone. This is Kris._

_No, he’s not with me. Have you lost him?_

_He was here and then he wasn’t. I figured_

When it appeared that the message had been cut off in mid-sentence, Natasha waited for the continuation. There was a sick feeling in her stomach as she contemplated where he might have run without his phone, all of them having something to do with women and alcohol and things that generally come with the merriment of a gold medal. Who was she to deny him his moment in the sun?

The phone was suddenly a distraction from sleep. Just as she moved it, it started back up again. _Sorry about that. I shouldn’t have bothered you. I’ve found him._

Without thinking, she responded, _Where was he?_

_Visiting his favorite medic once again. He’s been fighting a stomach virus. Got the best of him._

Before she thought about it through to the inevitable conclusion of missed sleep and an angry team captain, she pulled on enough clothes to be respectable and left the room at a run.


	5. Find an Anchor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint's going to be okay. Then, after some discussion, Natasha discovers that she's going to be okay, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: _There she stood in the doorway,/I heard the mission bell /And I was thinkin' to myself :/"This could be heaven and this could be hell"  
>  -The Eagles, Hotel California_ by anuna_81

It didn’t take Natasha long to find him. She’d expected more resistance but she asked for his room and the smiling woman at the desk had given her directions. The person standing in the doorway kept her from rushing headlong into the room but that was probably a good thing. As she took a deep, calming breath, she could hear the timbre of his laugh. This was the right room. He wasn’t dying. Still, she can’t make herself turn around and head back to her bed.

“How about we... oh, hi.” The guy in the doorway turned as he felt her presence behind him. She knew they must all know who she was but she couldn’t place any of the men who were suddenly staring at her.

“Is he okay?” she asked, her body ready to bolt back down the hallway at the first sign that she didn’t belong. “You never really said.”

“He’s fine. Just on intravenous fluids for the night. I’m Kris.”

Natasha took his outstretched hand out of respect for the man as Clint’s friend and teammate. “Natasha.” As quickly as she’d taken the hand, she let it drop and began to back away. It was stupid that she was even still here. “I’ll leave you to the rest of your celebrating.”

“Tasha? Get in here.”

Kris just smiled as Clint’s very cranky sounding voice reached them. “I’ll take the guys home. You good to stay here and watch our boy for us?”

She was flabbergasted when she found herself nodding as if she really had nothing else better to do than to play nursemaid to a guy she’d only met (and then only for a few seconds) three days ago. His teammates were smiling at her as they left as if she was a friend of theirs. It was the middle of the night and she was standing in a brightly-lit hall in yoga pants and a halter top, looking like a disheveled mess.

And it was all okay.

“Tasha?” Clint called again because she hadn’t been able to move. Her arms were crossed over her chest as she tried to reason through why this felt right. _Because it is_ , Alisa told her in her head. For once, she couldn’t argue.

Since no one was going to show up to tell her not to, she walked into the room and set on the bed by his hip. “You’ll do anything to get a girl’s attention, won’t you?

 

***  
All Clint could do was stare at her when she finally walked into the small closet of a room. It had seemed cavernous when he’d first arrived, his body rebelling at the thought of being upright any longer. When the guys had gotten there, following a tip from the girl who’d been serving them copious amounts of sparkling water (training didn’t end with a gold medal, after all, and the real stuff could wait until they were stateside, with their friends and family, anyway), the room had shrunk until he wanted to scream.

Now that she was here, fulfilling every fantasy he’d ever had with her hair done up in a messy ponytail and her form-fitting outfit, the room felt just the right size. She didn’t even hesitate as she walked in the room, just sitting down beside him, her hand coming down on top of his, as if she was the one calling the shots around here and he would do well to remember that to his peril.

“Oh, sure. I hang out in hospitals for fun. It’s all the rage where I’m from.” It was heaven, just as much as it was hell. He could watch his fill but he wasn’t sure it would be welcome if he traced the line of her body with his hands or tugged her hair loose, twisting it around his fingers until he was helplessly caught. 

“Malibu?”

He stared at her as he tried to figure out what she was talking about and how Malibu had become part of the conversation when only a few seconds ago his mind was swamped with the idea of pulling her forward, covering his wakening body with hers. When she blushed, his brain did a hard reboot and he found himself seeing the real woman in front of him with something like wonder. Dreams were one thing. Reality was quite another.

“Do you live near Malibu?” she finally asked, clearly uncomfortable with the combination of his silence and expression. “I’ve heard of Malibu. Movie stars live there.”

“I’m sure there are some there. I actually live further down the coast in San Diego. It’s a little more suited for my lifestyle. I’m not so much a movie star as I am a guy who really likes the beach.”

This started a conversation that covered topics that ranged from surfing (he’d tried it but wasn’t any good; she thought it looked interesting) to edibles (she’d never actually tried anything that could be called a true barbeque but thought it sounded good; he was intrigued by anything made out of cabbage but didn’t think he could stomach the thought of trying the dishes she mentioned with his stomach still feeling a bit tender) to training regimes (hers was mapped out by the coach for the team as a whole and they all followed it to the letter; his was more personalized to fit his style but he was still expected to follow the schedule explicitly). By the time they ran out of topics, she was sitting on the end of his bed, her legs pulled up to her chest.

“It’s late,” she whispered, her voice raw and misused.

He nodded his agreement. “You should head back to bed. It was wrong of me to keep you up when you’ve still got your event in front of you.”

“It’s the least I can do for a friend.”

This caught him off guard. “ _Are_ we friends?”

Now it was her turn to look confused. She let go of her legs so that they dangled over the edge of the bed, her hands clenched on each side as if she was preparing herself to jump off the bed and run for the door at any sign of trouble. He inched a hand closer to her, worried that he might lose her completely if he didn’t somehow find a way of going back in time and erasing that question from an otherwise perfect conversation.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant-”

“I know what you meant,” she interrupted, her face soft but closed off. “I should have used a different word. It’s silly to think we’re friends after only knowing each other for such a short amount of time. Absurd, really.”

When he started to laugh, she frowned still deeper, something he hadn’t figured was possible. There was only a limited number of minutes left to explain himself before he lost her completely. “No, that wasn’t what I meant at all. What I meant is that I’m surprised you used that term only because I feel like we’re more but I’m the one who’s been obsessed with you for years.”

Her eyebrow raised as her gaze narrowed. “Years?”

“Years.”

***  
Natasha couldn’t say exactly why she was excited when Clint blushed and dropped his eyes. She knew it was probably because he thought she was angry with him for his answer. The prospect of being known for that long was far more exhilarating than scary. Until this moment, it had felt as if she’d lived as just one component of a larger mechanism.

She had tried giving him an out, making it so that he could go back on his statement so that they could be as they were before. What was that exactly? From the very beginning, they had been different.

No, she had been different. Clint seemed to be surrounded by people who liked him. Natasha, on the other hand, didn’t have many friends outside of Alisa. She didn’t think she could even count the rest of her teammates as friends.

And then he surprised her even more than finding out that he’d been stalking her for far longer than she’d known he existed. He met her gaze and said, “While I like being your friend, I’d rather be more.”

“Like lovers?”

He choked and coughed and tried to speak all at the same time for several uncomfortable minutes. When he finally had a voice, he nodded. “Exactly.”

What the hell, she thought. This was the Olympics. The way she was rowing, her first Olympics would probably be her last. She might as well make the most of it.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Without taking her eyes off him, she crawled up the bed until she was straddling him, her hands pressing down on his shoulders and her mouth only inches from his. His breath was warm against her face even though she could tell he was trying to hold his breath. It was going to be an interesting challenge to see if she could make him forget that he was holding himself back from whatever it was that he was scared of doing. Seeing as his eyes were full of banked fire, she could well imagine what he wanted to do.

Having him holding back made her suddenly feel very powerful. He would do nothing without permission first. She had to sign off on the action first. If she wanted him to keep his hands at his side, he probably would. Not that it would be any fun for them if she did.

And she wanted to have fun. For the first time in what felt like her entire life, she wanted to have a night where she didn’t think of anything but herself. This wasn’t about rowing. This certainly wasn’t about her teammates or her countrymen. This man, lying prone underneath her, didn’t care about any of that. He wanted her, plain and simple. 

“Okay.”

His smile, once he processed her single word, made any reservation she might have vanish. “That’s the easiest argument I’ve won in months.”


	6. Aim With Your Instincts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of stuff happens in this one! Natasha discovers what she truly wants and Clint breaks some rules.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song I used is _Anywhere I Lay Your Head_ by Tom Waits. Scarlett did a cover of this song on her album and I thought it was appropriate for Clint to sing to Natasha.

Alisa was waiting for her the next morning when she tried to sneak back into the room. Unfortunately, she hadn’t gotten the early start that she’d promised herself she would so she wasn’t much surprised to see her teammate staring at her with wide eyes as she finally snuck through the door. Or, rather, she thought she snuck in. When the door she’d so gently closed opened again, she tried not to let her surprise show on her face.

“Where have you been?”

“Out,” she replied in English, even though her coach was speaking in the Russian he never deviated from. As a sign of respect, the girls all talked to Gregor in the mother tongue no matter where they were or what they were doing.

None of this was Gregor’s fault. She knew that. He wasn’t the one who wanted to get her off the team. That was all politics. He wanted the best performance he could get out of the girls and that meant curfews and training schedules and eating plans. That meant more hours in the gym and in bed than doing anything else. She and the rest of the girls had risen to the top of the sport because of these measures.

She should have felt guilty for breaking the rules but Natasha only felt a detached sense of irritation for being put into this spot yet again. If the team needed a scapegoat to heap all their woes on, she was certainly filling the bill for them lately. Everything that went wrong, no matter if she was there or not, seemed to rest on her shoulders these days. Eva could sneeze too hard, throwing out a rib and it would be her fault. Always her fault.

It wouldn’t have surprised her if he’d come at her with fists and accusations. Instead, he turned away, his rigid back imprinted in her memory well after he left the room, followed by the silent girls that had come in to stare at her humiliation. Even Alisa had left. In this, she knew better than to try to stand with her friend.

Natasha was tired of being alone. That she would come to this stunning realization at the one point in her life where she was at a crossroads in her life wasn’t surprising. She’s never been able to admit how alone she felt when she truly was. Now there was someone else out there that gave a damn.

Thumbing her phone on, she took a deep breath as she started to type out the most important text she would probably ever write.

_You know how I told you that I didn’t want you at the matches? Would you come anyway?_

***

Thirty-two hours after walking himself to the clinic for the second time, Clint felt like a new man. It might have had something to do with the fact that he’d had two of the best nights of sleep that he’d ever had. Or maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t boarded the plane home with the rest of his teammates and was, instead, boarding in a room in one of the houses at the outskirts of Olympic Village that was supposed to be vacant.

He wasn’t alone in his law-breaking but it was the type of rule that begged to be snapped in two, and if there was any better place in the world to break the rules, it was Olympic Village in the heart of London. Of the twenty rooms, thirteen of them were occupied with people like him, who should have been going home after their medal ceremony had concluded. Like him, they had their reasons for staying that far outweighed any slap on the hand they might receive if anyone found out that they were thumbing their noses at regulations.

It had always been his plan to stick around in London until the games were over but it was Natasha’s text that clenched his decision to stay nearby instead of moving to the hotel room he’d had reserved for months. There was a desperation in her words, unspoken but not unseen, that had him making a different call.

Waking up with her in his arms had a lot to do with his feelings of giddiness. Sure, he knew it couldn’t last but he was all about living in the moment and, at the moment, her vibrant red hair was spilling over his bare chest.

“Morning,” he grunted as she shifted, turning her head toward his. “You sleep well?”

“Well enough.” It was the same answer as yesterday but there’s a dead look in her eyes that he doesn’t like. It hadn’t been there when she’d left him yesterday morning with a quick kiss and a reminder that she’d find him after her event was done.

“You want breakfast? Or do you eat before? I like to eat but not everyone does.”

Instead of an answer, she turned her head away. He gave her a minute of silence, hardly daring to breathe himself as he waited to see what she was going to do.

When nothing happened, he tried again. “I know you have qualifications today. Do you have to be anywhere before then?” Her head moved in a general _no_ motion. “I have someone I want you to meet.”

“It’s not anyone in your family, is it?”

Even with her hair in the way, he still heard the sarcasm laced through her morning-roughened voice, so damn sexy with that accent clipping her words in different places than he expected. He didn’t try to hold his laughter back, even though she bore the brunt of his good humor.

“No. Nothing like that. I just... have a friend. He’s a good guy. I got to know him awhile ago. He’s the one who helped get me on the team. That sounds weird. He’s a sports therapist. I wasn’t in quite the right shape when he found me. Through some training and diet regimes and things like that, he got me into a competitive spot and I was able to fight for the right to be on the team.

“What’s his name?”

“Coulson. Phil Coulson.”

***

She wasn’t sure what she was expecting when she let Clint bully her into getting dressed before finally leading her to the non-descript building near where he was staying. She wasn’t exactly sure what a sports therapist did but she was willing to give Clint the benefit of the doubt. Besides, he was smiling at her like he was taking her to the circus or something.

The smiling man in the black warm up gear definitely wasn’t who she was expecting to be extending her hand toward. His “Nice to meet you” was spoken so low she could hardly hear it but his smile was pleasant.

As she tried to read his expression, Natasha found herself suddenly trying to fill the silence. “Clint speaks very highly of you.” 

“And he speaks highly of you.”

It felt like some sort of test that, if she failed, would mean that her new friendship with Clint would be on more tentative footing than it was at the present. Even though there was something about these silences that made her want to chatter on uncharacteristically, Natasha put her hands in the pockets of her jacket and looked around the room.

“Can I show her the room?”

“Fine by me. Don’t let Fury know you have the competition here, though.”

He tugged at her hand, away from the man who was still silently analyzing her. She might have found it unsettling if her life wasn’t so upside down and unsettled all on its own, without any outside help. All the way down the hall, she could feel his eyes trained on her.

“What do you think?”

They step through a door before she was even aware they were at their destination. It’s on the side away from the main thoroughfare so the open window doesn’t carry any of the conversations from the street. There’s a gentle breeze blowing a sheer curtain that’s tied into a knot to keep it from letting the sunlight in.

Other than that observation, she doesn’t get much else but a large room that was almost empty. There was an expensive looking piano in the very middle of the polished wood floor. It was unclear what she was supposed to notice and comment on. As she turned to look at him, she tried to see the joke. The very last thing she needed right now was to take the energy to erect new defenses.

“I read somewhere, in some magazine, that you used to dance.” When it appeared to him that she didn’t react, he continued. “I play the piano. I thought... you might... this was a bad idea, wasn’t it?”

She didn’t answer as her body folded in on itself, knees to chest and palms flat on the smooth planks of wood.

***  
Clint didn’t know how to react as she sank to the floor. This wasn’t the reaction he wanted, but it doesn’t seem completely out of hand, either. The fact that Natasha had once been a dancer was a small little fact in an obscure magazine that he’d had to pay to have translated because the language it was written in no longer existed. It wasn’t something he was supposed to know.

“I’m sorry. I thought-”

“Please.” Her voice was pitched low and, with the way her body was contorted, he had trouble hearing her clearly. As he stepped closer, she unfurled once again. He’d expected tears but her cheeks were completely unmarred and her eyes were dry. “Would you play?”

He sat down at the instrument, unsure now what to play. Something she could dance to? Something just for fun? Without looking up to see what she was doing at the moment, he decided to play something for his own enjoyment.

_My head is spinning round, my heart is in my shoes, yeah_  
 _I went and set the Thames on fire, oh, now I must come back down_  
 _She's laughing in her sleeve, boys, I can feel it in my bones_  
 _Oh, but anywhere I'm gonna lay my head, I'm gonna call my home_

While he knew she was still in the room as he began to sing, Natasha stood so still that he felt the need to look up just to make sure she was okay. When he met her eyes and saw joy glowing back, it made it all worth it. Then, before he could articulate his feelings back to her in any other way then the song, she began to dance.


End file.
